While it is a best practice to constantly review and optimize various aspects of your email marketing campaigns, when there is a crisis or other occurrence that impacts your audience in dramatic and unexpected ways, it becomes vital that you take a step back and ensure your campaigns are properly aligned. Even if your strategy is to take a business-as-usual approach to your email campaigns, that should be a decision reached after careful consideration, rather than simply a default approach.

Here are just a few steps you should take when evaluating if and how your email marketing program should address or adapt to a specific situation.

Review Your Mailing Schedule

There is an old saying that timing is everything, and in email marketing, we know this is a very accurate statement. A huge factor in a campaign’s performance is having it set up to reach recipients at the right time. Think of something as simple as an abandoned cart email. This type of email campaign is so effective largely because it is driven by an action the recipient recently took — putting some items in their online shopping cart, but then not completing a purchase. Similarly, an email campaign that ties into the season or a particular upcoming event or holiday uses timing to drive scheduling.

A sudden crisis or major unexpected event creates an entirely new scheduling challenge that may impact your well-planned email campaign schedule. Your audience’s concerns and motivations may be completely altered for a period of time. This situation necessitates that you review your mailing schedule to determine if it should be revised to better reflect the needs of your recipients.